Metric Power in our Daily Lives
In today’s society, we have become compelled to track measure and collect data constantly. With new apps being downloaded every day, we and other third parties are collecting tracking and measuring our data to make sense of the world around us. In fact, what we don’t see is how these actions we are doing are actually reinforcing a view of our society and is actually shaping the world according to our assumptions. Metric power is exercised when ordering, sorting and categorizing data (Beer, 2016), and that is exactly what is happening in the world right now. For the purpose of this blogpost, we are going to take the example of my fitness pal. This app allows us to measure our calorie intake and measure how many calories we should eat in a day. Even though it is advertised in a way to believe it is exclusively for people who want to lose weight, it can also help in gaining or maintain one’s weight. In many ways, this app provides us insight on how metric power works and how it is reinforcing a certain view on society.
We first started by reading through the privacy policy of the app; we saw who is collecting our data, what is being collected and where it is being stored. This app is based on data collection and all of our data is being collected by Under Armour Inc. and family affiliated companies: Under Armour, Inc. is an American company that manufactures footwear, sports, and casual apparel. Our data is being stored in the united states and the privacy policy clearly states that privacy laws may differ between our country and the U.S. Our data is collected in many ways and for many purposes for example: “We collect your personal data […] when you register for an account or interact with our services” (Under Armour Inc, 2018). Also, it is stated that our information may be disclosed to other parties for advertising and marketing to affiliates and partners, and many others. One of the main purposes of data collection is to give personalized access to the app, such as personalized diets or coaching. As stated before, this app is advertised as a weight loss app. This is the first way it starts building norms and certain standards in society. The apps purpose is not only for people to lose weight, yet since it is advertised as such it might glorify weight loss and make it a social standard. People shouldn’t gain weight but in fact lose it. It reinforces body standards that people should have, being thin is the ideal that everyone should reach. These norms are legitimized within the app, where it states what a “normal healthy” persons weight is according to a certain height.
Another feature that this app has is the fact that when you eat way less calories than you should, a message comes up and states that it is unhealthy weight loss, yet the number is still green
yet, when you over eat, the number turns red
and a message that states “if you continue eating in this rate your weight will become X number” pops up. That could unconsciously affect the app user to think that weight loss, even if unhealthy, is better than over eating.
The assumption in this case is that everyone wants to lose weight. It is also assumed that every person’s body works in the same way. The app works in a way where it calculates how many calories you should eat according to your height, weight, your goal how active you are and how much weight you want to lose in a week. What it fails to acknowledge is that people’s bodies work in different ways; some people might need more calories to go about their days; weight loss is not a fixed program that any person can follow. Also, if people want to access the full version of the app, they will need to pay for premium; premium subscriptions are more personalized.
Since weight loss is glorified, we see certain categories that arise from this app. When we start categorizing people, that is where we start seeing some inequalities arise. Success stories of weight loss are the first thing you can see on the app.
As stated before, it glorifies the idea of weight loss. This automatically creates a higher category of people, which is the people who are in fact losing or have lost all the weight they wanted to lose. We also have the healthy vs unhealthy, over eating and under eating are both categories that are considered as “bad”, yet over eating is worse. This creates a hierarchy between people, and this leads to negative consequences. By quantifying ourselves, we automatically start seeing our value increase or decrease through those measurements. People could be overly affected by those measurements and start putting unhealthy goals in front of them. Reaching a certain weight could become an obsession and calorie counting is a tool for this obsession to grow. For example, a study conducted by Levinson, Fewell & Brosof (2017), has found that a lot of the community using MyFitnessPal are in fact people with eating disorders, and the app is actually contributing to their disorders symptoms. Also, another thing that could contribute to an eating disorder is the fact that when a user under eats, an informal message is shown, yet nothing else is made to stop that. And as stated before, the fact that the number of calories left to eat still stays green also contributes to that since people might think that it is okay and it is contributing to weight loss.
Since this app measures our calorie intake in order for us to lose weight, it became a new way to quantify people and put them into categories. Power is reinforced in that case since our weight and calorie intake become a valuable part of us, and in a small way starts defining our own value in comparison to others in society. Quantifying ourselves, and measuring ourselves have become a way for us to give (or to remove) a value to a person.
By:
Louna Karameh
Rouba Tamim
References:
Beer (2016) ‘ Conclusion The Intersections and Imbrications of Metric Power’ in Metric Power, Palgrave MAcMillan UK, p. 174; 177
Levinson, C. A., Fewell, L., & Brosof, L. C. (2017). My Fitness Pal calorie tracker usage in the eating disorders. Eating Behaviors,27, 14–16. doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2017.08.003
Under Armour Inc, Privacy Policy, 2018. Retrieved from: https://account.underarmour.com/en-us/privacy
